severe on Iieresy, was more lenient in this respect, and by one
act she swept away these monuments of the cruelties perpe-
trated under her father and brother.

The legislation on treason is not an edifying episode of our
history, but it will bear comparison with the practice of other
countries which did not possess our safeguards. As an instru-
ment for drawing the people to the king it had little or no
result : the severities of the law did not retard the growth of
loyalty any more than the legal perfections of the abstract king
attracted the affections of the people. The child Richard and
the baby Henry might be the object of sincere patriotic attach-
ment to thousands who had never seen them ; but the law
regarded them as the mainspring of the national machine.
With no more conscious exercise of power than the diadem,
or the great seal, or the speaker’s mace, they enacted all the
laws and issued all the writs on which the welfare and safety
of the kingdom hung. In the boy Henry, as his council told
him, resided the sum and substance of sovereignty¹; but the
execution of all the powers implied in this was vested in Iiis
council. The ideal king could do all things, but without the
counsel and consent of the estates he could do nothing. The
exaltation of the ideal king was the exaltation of the law that
stood behind him, of the strength and majesty of the state
which he impersonated. It could be no wonder if now and
then a king should mistake the theory for the truth of fact,
and, like Richard II, should attempt to put life in the splendid
phantom. And when the king arose who had the will and the
power, the nation had gone on so long believing in the theory,
that they found no weapons to resist the fact, until the fac-
titious theory of the Stewarts raised the ghost of medieval
absolutism to be laid then and for ever.

It is needless to recapitulate here the substance of our former
conclusions. The strength of the crown at the close of the
middle ages lay in the permanence of the idea of royalty, the
wealth of the king, the legal definitions and theory of the
supreme power : its position was enhanced by the suicide of
^l See above, p. 108.

XXi.]          Political weight of the Clergi/.           539

the baronage, the personal qualities of the new dynasty, the
political weariness of the nation, and the altered position of
the kings in the great states of Europe. The place of Henry
VII cannot be understood without reference to the events
which, in France, Spain and Germany, were consolidating
great dynastic monarchies, in the activity of which the nations
themselves had little independent participation. But this
marks the beginning of the new period, and its historic signi-
ficance had yet to be divulged.

464. Second, but scarcely second, to the influence of the influence of
crown was the influence of the church, resulting to a great ^thθ ^ch"^rch'
extent from the same historic causes and strengthened by ana-
logous sanctions. In more ways than one the ecclesiastical
power in England was a conserving and uniting element. The Territorial
possessions of the clergy, the landed estates of the bishops, of the clergy,
the cathedrals, and of the monastic communities, extended into
nearly every parish, and the tithes and offerings which main-
tained the beneficed clergy were a far larger source of revenue
than even the lands. The clergy, and the monastic orders
especially, had been good farmers ; in early days the monks
had laboured hard to reclaim the fens ; in somewhat later
times the Cistercians had clothed the hills and downs with
sheep, and thus fostered the growth of the staple commodity
of medieval England. The clergy were moreover very mild
landlords. Their wealth was greater than the king’s ; their
industrial energy and influence for a long period were un-
rivalled. To those who knew anything of the political history Their hb>to-
of the past, the church had great historical claims to honour ;

her champions had withstood the strongest and most politic
kings, and her holiest prelates had stood side by side with the
defenders of national liberty. The clergy had a majority of
votes in the house of lords, without counting those of such lay
lords as were sure to support their spiritual guides. They had Thek eoɪɪ-
also their taxing assembly in the convocation, a machinery position,
which saved them from being directly involved in the petty
financial discussions of the parliaments. They furnished the
great ministers of state, the chancellors with rare exceptions,

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